Mair W. Culbreth

Education

• Ph.D., Dance Studies, The Ohio State University
• M.S., Kinesiology, San Francisco State University

Biography

Dr. Mair W. Culbreth creates, researches, and teaches at the intersection of dance, cultural studies, and social justice. Drawing from a social kinesthetic framework, her work examines how bodies move through systems of power—how movement can both register marginalization and enact resistance. Her choreographic and scholarly practice engages queer, feminist, and critical theory to reimagine the dancing body as a site of agency, empathy, and world-making.

Culbreth’s current creative research explores rock climbing ropes and rigging as choreographic methodology—a study in interdependence, trust, and the politics of embodiment. Integrating concepts of orientation, instability, and a queer kinesthetic of vulnerability into her rehearsal process, she investigates how the physical negotiation of gravity and support can become a metaphor for social and relational balance. This work builds upon her long-standing inquiry into the ways dance can cultivate collective resilience and embodied connection across difference.

Her creative and scholarly research has been shaped by over two decades in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she performed with Kathleen Hermesdorf’s MotionLab, Lizz Roman and Dancers, Company Mecanique, Sean Dorsey Dance/Fresh Meat Productions, and Project Bandaloop. In 2003 she received a Bay Area Izzie Award for Performance. Before joining academia, she conducted NIH-funded research at Stanford University on the effects of movement on aging and health, bridging scientific and artistic approaches to the body.

Culbreth holds a Ph.D. in Dance Studies with a doctoral minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, an M.S. in Kinesiology from San Francisco State University, and a B.A. in Multidisciplinary Studies from North Carolina State University. She is also a master teacher of the Pilates Method and continues to work with populations navigating neurological challenges such as Parkinson’s and traumatic brain injury.

She is currently an Associate Professor of Dance at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts and the author of Unruly Bodies: Politics, Pedagogies, and Performance Practices (forthcoming)—the first full-length study of acclaimed choreographer Joe Goode, illuminating how his performances, teaching practices, and creative philosophies model a radical approach to embodiment in contemporary life.

Links

• Curriculum Vitae, CV (PDF)
• vimeo.com

Recent & Selected Works

Artistic Works & Performances

• Do Not Spare Yourself. Choreography by Mair Culbreth, Spring 2025.
• this kind of bird flies backwards. Choreography by Mair Culbreth, Winter 2023.
• at the edge of everything. Choreography by Mair Culbreth, Spring 2021.
• Real Words. Choreography by Joe Goode, Performance and rehearsal direction by Mair Culbreth, Winter 2020.
• this is where we begin. Choreography by Mair Culbreth, Spring 2019.

Awards

Wisconsin Teaching Fellows and Scholars Award, 2024-25.

Books

Culbreth, Mair. (forthcoming) Unruly Bodies: Politics, Performance, and Practices of Joe Goode. Intellect Publishing, 2027.